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@pateceramics Thanks! It never even popped into my head how the group might drift off pitch. Maybe I could put a drone in the piano to offset this? I'm also thinking of getting rid of the low F completely, as the group is a really great University choir but their voices are still young, and I think they might strain sitting on that note for such a long time.
@Monarcheon Thanks for these comments, I've never gotten formal composition lessons, so I'm always somewhat lost as to formatting a score.
@Willibald @Luis Hernández the double soprano solo is actually just the normal soprano line at m. 23! I should make this more clear. And hopefully the singers will be ok with it, as they are a fabulous group! But I do see where they could be strained in some sections of the piece. Thanks!

Hey all! This is my newest composition for SSAA choir and piano. I used the text "i thank You God for most this amazing" by e.e. cummings. The midi is split up into two separate files since Sibelius couldn't render the whole piece out at one time. I should have a live recording soon! Hope you enjoy it!

Is there a way to notate aleatoric sections of music on sibelius? Maybe I'm missing it, but I can't seem to find anything to bracket or parenthesize the noteheads or draw an arrow after them. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!
- Pat

@Marc O'Callaghan Thanks for pointing out the large gap between the basses and sopranos, I myself am a pretty low bass, and I love the way open voiced chords (as in a lot of Eriks Esenvalds' pieces) sound, although I forget to think about how hard they can be to sing/ tune for amateur voices! Now that you pointed it out, it makes a lot of sense about the octaves/ fifths, as there may even be room for a countermelody or something else!
@Adrian Quince Thanks for the feedback! As I've listened back to the recording, I agree that the quick dissonances in the soprano, especially in the climax, are really difficult to tune, and almost sound like errors sometimes! As far as the difficulty level, my professor sent it into his publishing house, and they told him that it is a little too easy for college and too difficult for all except the best high school choirs. They said it would be really difficult to sell and publish because of this!

Hi all,
I wanted to share this piece with you all! I wrote this for a local competition for a community choir, and it's the first piece I wrote. I ended up showing it to my college choir director and he programmed it for us last year! I'd really like feedback on how to make this more friendly for high school voices, as it's too easy for college choirs and too difficult for high schools with all of the part splits, but I feel like the piece really relies on the open voiced chords in the climax. Any thoughts on that would be greatly appreciated! My parents recorded it with their iPhone, so the video quality isn't the best, but I figured that voices in any sense would be much better than midi. The piece starts about a minute into the video. Thanks for your thoughts! - Pat

I really, really love the color you use in this piece as far as harmony goes. The chord changes and sudden tonicizations are just wonderful, it reminds me a lot of Ola Gjeilo's writing. The piece really has a peaceful mood, and it works quite well. I was almost wishing that a forte or climactic section happened a bit later in the piece, than the first couple of phrases. Then again, a calm mood for the whole piece may have been what you were going for, as a lot of Lux Aeterna settings are very peaceful. I think in the context of a whole Requiem Mass, it would be enchanting. About your struggles with the text "cum sanctis tuis in aeternam", I think it would be really cool to play with the idea of building up to a big cadential moment on that text and then completely interrupting it with the solo you wrote. I really like the ending too, as I feel it's certainly open ended enough to go into another movement if you keep writing the mass! Beautiful job all in all!!

@kvitske thanks so much! Regarding your first bullet, I set the words in a way that I thought would show the longing of someone in pain seeing "all you people" walk by and ignore their pain, so I think that's why I lingered on that text a bit. I completely agree about not giving too much attention to the next set, I'll probably end up re-working that section a bit! Also thanks so much for pointing out the voice leading issues. I think adding those notes you suggested would really help make it a bit easier to sing. Thanks so much for the feedback!
@Adrian Quince I really like your suggestion about the altos handling the dissonances at the beginning, I think that will lead to a better balance too! The whole 8 part thing was actually because I have no idea how to use sibelius well haha. I tried to split into 8 parts at m. 60, but every time I tried to collapse the pages before that into 4 staves, the whole project would really become a mess that I didn't know how to fix. As for the breath marks in m. 70 and 72 are most definitely supposed to be a kind of lingering pause, is there a more clear marking to use for that? Thanks so much for your thoughts!

Hey @Monarcheon! Thanks so much for the feedback! I was actually really inspired by Monteverdi's vocal writing and Bach's stile antico writing for a lot of the parts where there are suspension chains, so I realize that things are not resolved or led correctly but I guess it was more of an affect kind of thing! - Pat

Hi everyone!
This is my newest composition, and only my third, I wrote it for a competition, so I had a few friends record it with me. The quality i far from professional, but i'm open to all feedback and would really appreciate it!!